How do you figure out you’re weird?
I’m really not sure when I figured it out. I was happy as I could be in my world of discount store tennis shoes, the outfits Mom made, and getting to wear my super long hair in the same ponytails or braids for a week at a time. I grew up in the country and farm animals were my best friends. I’d bring plants I dug up in my yard to “show & tell”. I would tell stories about my friend from another town – but the other town was actually Imaginationville. I peed my pants in class in 3rd grade.
One day in probably 5thgrade, I figured out all the popular girls wouldn’t ask me to play kickball. And really, I only had a couple of friends I played with. But I kept on being my weird, awkward self. With my head down, I marched on.
But in 6thgrade the realization was painful. “They” were really all talking about me. And “they” were really mean as all girls can be. I cried. Teachers tried to put us all together to work it out. Whatever. There were no pep talks from Mom about how great it was to just be you, an individual. I deserved to be excluded. I was weird and I would never fit in with them.
The Bully Club.
Many of us are card-carrying members. We wear the scars for many years after of being bullied and beat up on emotionally.
I didn’t find the confidence in the years after I figured out I was weird. I didn’t learn to march to my own beat, be individual, and MOST IMPORTANT, to quit beating myself up trying to conform. Because, really, that was the whole deal. I was much harder on myself than anyone else could have been.
40 years later, I finally know I peed my pants in class because I was so painfully shy. I didn’t want to interrupt my teacher and draw attention to myself. But it took years of looking back at myself and how others reacted to my weirdness to realize a lot of things like this.
Raise your hands girls! You might fit better in the bully club.
- Avoiding Your Friends? I’m Not Buying It. - June 25, 2019
- You’re Weird.So am I.[Join the Bully Club now!] - April 8, 2019
- Don’t Marry for the Rocking Chair - March 6, 2019